5) DO NOT INSTIGATE! Deliberately trying to piss people off is juvenile, so just don't. If someone is trolling or acting like a 12-year old sociopath, please try to ignore it the first time around rather than escalating it. If they do it repeatedly, you have my permission to fire back ONCE! If they keep doing it, PM me and I'll ban them for life. I will sacrifice the one to protect the many. A lot of effort is focused on keeping this forum in the style of a rational debate amongst adults.---Which kinda makes it an oasis of reason in the interwebs. Don't destroy this culture! It's a rare thing in these days!

6) NO LYNCH MOBS! Because I've been on the receiving end of this more than once I'll allow no social media mob behavior on this forum; that is, negatively discussing anyone who is not present to defend themselves. In my experience such things don't help anyone. Basically, if you don't want to say something to somebody's face (presuming they're a heavyweight UFC fighter/not smaller than you), don't say it at all. Furthermore, if you don't want to say it for the public record.---Don't say it either. This is not for the purpose of being politically correct. It is because such opinionating tends to be misinformed and stupid.

I would have thought that from 5 and 6, it should follow that NO DOXING is an obvious corollary. Now, we can talk about the first amendment and free speech, but realize that the First places a restriction on the government only, and this forum is my house and my rules.

Doxing is a bad idea on forums for the same reason that biological weapons are widely banned because they are a bad idea in wars for multiple reasons. Staying with the analogy, doxing on a forum is equivalent to bombing someone with anthrax. It might kill the target, but it also renders the ground around it toxic and unlivable for years after! Aside from being a serious escalation (if you use it, it might be used on you in the future, or others too), it has significant unintended and uncontrolled consequences such as chilling effect(s) where people choose what to post going and up to the point where people decide to leave. I now have requests from high profile members that their account and all their posts be deleted because of what happened in one thread.

No matter how noble or just your goal is there are certain methods that are not acceptable because the collateral damage (tone, precedent, ... ) has unacceptable consequences for both subsequent and otherwise unrelated behavior.

Remember, this is my house. This also means that I enforce the rules on this site! If you think something should be done, PM me or click on the "!" symbol to report the offending post---that's what it's there for. And allow for the fact that I might be on vacation from the forum.

Before making my first ever post, I changed my username from the username I use for social sites to this fairly generic fiby41.

You can only find me on maybe eBay by reverse image searching my username or profile pic.

Similarly, my friends and I use the first syllables of our first, mid and last names and morph them into the nearest meaningful word by adjusting the vowel sounds, for making our gaming usernames.

Real example,

Initials,
A Vi De

Username,
AViD

Initials,

Ve Ni Ma

VeNoM

The gaming crowd is usually vile and witch hunting is common even when teams are not losing by a landslide.

For social networking, email usernames, official accounts like bank, college etc we use our real names.

I wouldn't want anyone who knows me IRL and my other usernames to find out about my journal for privacy reasons. Other than that everything, my insensitive comments, views on religion, politics, etc it is the same IRL.